The joy of giving!
The Generosity Ministry, comprised of Pat Swartz (chair), Joe Bevis, Ruth Mortensen, Jamie Sapoch and Bev Mills, is charged with distributing the “mission” giving of HPC. Generosity receives 8% of the monthly member giving and determines to which organizations we should donate our resources. This we have done for many, many years, formerly under the name of the Mission Committee.
Amazingly, now, we have the added responsibility of donating a portion of the exceptionally generous bequest funds provided by the Alex and Eunice Sharipen. It is an awesome responsibility, in the true sense of the word, to decide where to donate the Sharipen monies. There are many needs and many worthy organizations. This is what we determined to do with the most recent funding:
On Friday, January 20th, Bev and Michael Mills had the pleasure of delivering HPC’s donation of $75,000 to the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen. Our donation arrived at the precise moment in time when TASK is launching its new strategic plan to develop a second serving site in Trenton, likely in the Chambersburg neighborhood. Our significant donation therefore becomes the “lead gift” in their brand new fundraising campaign, sure to parlay into much more from many other sources. They were thrilled with our unexpected contribution, and the Generosity Committee was thrilled to be able to provide it.
We have had a long relationship with TASK; we’ve sent volunteers monthly to help serve food for many, many years and we’ve also consistently donated a portion of HPC’s yearly member giving income.
Left to right: Denise Barricklow (TASK’s Manager of Annual Giving), Michael Mills, Bev Mills, Paul Jensen (TASK’s Associate Executive Director for Operations), Kathy Schroeher (Vice Chair of TASK’s Board of Directors), Mia Hart (Manager of TASK’s Adult Education and Work Preparedness Program)
On Friday, January 27th, Pastor Melissa, Bev Mills and Ruth Mortensen had a wonderful experience delivering $75,000 to Arm in Arm, another hard-working local agency which began as Crisis Ministries, a food pantry for families in need. Arm in Arm has expanded its mission to help solve local housing insecurity by providing financial resources to families nearing eviction. Hearing more and more about the problematic end of the national covid eviction moratorium and the arrival of new immigrants in our area, we have designated our Arm in Arm donation for housing assistance.
Left to right: Jimmy Torres (AIA Mobile Pantry Coordinator), Leticia Hernandez (AIA Pantry Coordinator), Pastor Melissa, Ruth Mortensen, Louise Senior (AIA Volunteer Master Gardener), Bev Mills, Arthur Hui(AIA volunteer), David Fox (AIA Executive Director), Dave Ziegler(AIA Volunteer), Cecilia Avila (AIA Director of Hunger Prevention), Maureen Hunt (AIA Chief Development Officer), Cynthia Mendez (AIA Director of Housing Stability Services)
We expect to host representatives from both TASK and Arm in Arm at HPC this spring to hear more about their important work and ways we can partner. Please watch for those dates.
Finally, the Generosity Committee was pleased to be able to send $100,000 to Friends for Health in Haiti. During the 2021 earthquake more than 2,200 people died and nearly 13,000 were injured. Several infrastructures and 130,000 houses collapsed. Dr. Katie Wolf at Friends for Health in Haiti, who has run an amazing medical mission there for many years, has been trying to raise funds to help the local people rebuild their homes. We designated $60,000 to complete that request, and the additional $40,000 to supply their regular clinic and staff needs.
Please refer to the websites of these three organization to learn more.
We on the Generosity Committee are grateful to the congregation for entrusting us with this important task – the task of giving away our resources – and doing so with a sense of gratitude for all that we’ve been given.
Click here to see the letters we received in response to these donations.